Seventeen months after the UTB-TSC director of human resources was fired, a lawsuit is pending and the position remains vacant.

Rene Coronado, a candidate for the Texas Southmost College Board of Trustees, has filed a lawsuit under the Texas Whistleblower’s Act against The University of Texas at Brownsville, alleging that he was fired in retaliation for reporting irregularities in employees’ timesheets.

Coronado worked for the university as the director of its human resources department before being fired in 2008. In August 2008, less than a week before he was fired, Coronado had filed a report with the U.S. Department of Labor, asking the agency to investigate inconsistencies in the way that employees clocked their hours. According to the lawsuit, Coronado alleges he was fired for making the report to the Department of Labor.

Correspondence between the Department of Labor and UTB-TSC shows that an investigation took place early in 2009. Fair Labor Standards Act investigator Lazaro Abrego found that the university had underpaid seven employees a total of $806.44 due to incorrectly clocked hours.

University officials agreed to pay the owed wages and the Department of Labor cautioned that if the school had such violations in the future it would be fined.

The Texas Attorney General’s office determined that Coronado’s rights were violated under the state’s whistleblower statute, which protects state employees from retaliation.

The lawsuit was filed in November of 2008 in the 197th District Court and is still pending.
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